


Do not lie to me

by bblamentation



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, I don't know what rating because it might be too mild for M??, Implied Sexual Content, M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-18
Updated: 2018-12-18
Packaged: 2019-09-21 17:04:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,626
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17047139
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bblamentation/pseuds/bblamentation
Summary: Soulmate AU: It is impossible to lie to your soulmate.Neil Josten has survived his whole life giving lies. Andrew Minyard survives by blunt truth.





	Do not lie to me

**Author's Note:**

> Here is my gift for Darya @ashrelfury on tumblr for the AFTG Winter Exchange. 
> 
> This isn't very wintry but this is my first time writing a soulmate au, so it ended up becoming more of an exploration of the soulmate aspect. I hope you enjoy.

**I**

Neil Josten has lied his whole life.

The one person he could never lie to was his mother. Her strength and paranoia held him accountable that their survival was life: a lie went far, truth brought death.

So, when he was sporting bruises from a stupid kiss all he felt was a worthless regret. An unimportant girl who had teased him, _“You know soulmates can’t lie to one another—”_ before his mother had ripped him from her.

A young Abram had promised then he would always lie, his mother’s lies embedded into his skin, starting with his name and never ending.

It would be okay to lie and never meet his soulmate, if it meant surviving.

 

**II**

Barely half an hour from the boy slinging his duffel bag into the trunk and he had busted the twins’ ruse. No one ever could tell the difference between the Minyards—even Nicky needed the bands and Andrew’s medication. But Neil Josten had cocked his self away from Andrew’s curiosity to shift into Andrew’s scrutiny.

But Andrew had never lied to the boy. He had merely let him get away with believing in the truth that Aaron had picked him up from the airport.

When Andrew opened his mouth, he wiped the lying smile and showed himself as true in front of the newcomer. Contracting a new striker may be beneficial for Kevin but it would be _interesting_ , if not more in the hope of himself.

 

**III**

Lies. Mother. Lies. Survive.

A life living with only one rule to follow and yet going off course and onto the court his mother loathed made him feel more alive than dodging bullets did—those felt like the cliff of death. The bruises of an exy ball and the reprimands from Kevin was a life Neil Josten wanted more than the bruises and reprimands he had before. Yet, habits died harder—a lifetime of running only made words spilled lies stacked on a fabricated name. It would have been a wonder how none of his teammates had caught on except ever since Mary Hatford had yanked her son’s arm and started calling him Finn that boy was as sly as the fox they represented.

Cigarette lit, a small fire, and Neil was brought to the reality of harsh truths. It was not the truths of his past he wanted. No, he latched onto Andrew’s firmness pressing a key into his hand and telling him where he was. So tightly he held onto that truth.

He wished he could give Andrew his truths. It was not that he felt compelled to spill the truth from his lips, it was only that no matter how Neil thought he was going to answer, the wrong ( _right_ ) words spoke instead. At first Neil thought it was the German that made him fumble. Maybe when he had admitted, when asked, that he had been watching Andrew it was his lack of German tongue that had let him slip.

Yet, he could control it; he could give half-truths and omissions. He just needed to be twice as careful with Andrew as he was with Kevin.

But that was a problem itself. Neil Josten was unfolding before Andrew Minyard, heavily relying on stolen truths and omissions of the past to mask the lies that would not find their way from Neil’s mouth.

 

**IV**

Whether Andrew Joseph Minyard was observant from birth or had been forced to be by experience, it was the blond twin who understood the meaning of lies and truths. Andrew spoke the truth as a means of stirring reactions but the problem with Neil Josten was he kept on giving. When Neil asked, Andrew gave. It was not that he felt compelled to.

He wanted to.

That ‘ _want’_ was a problem: a problem Andrew did not know how to handle. But like everything he let it be. Let it run its course. At first, he had intervened and protected Kevin, blocked Nicky prying too far, watched for Aaron, but then then the low uncensored (German-censored) voice was given to Andrew in the walls of Wymack’s apartment and Andrew pushed.

It had been left there. Because though he heard that strange hissing ring as the boy spoke there was a rawness Andrew knew too well. And though Andrew could hear that hissing ring—no it was more a feeling—in almost every word Neil Josten spoke it was the that same low voice that held such a trust. A trust Andrew had to believe each time it came in that game of asking and telling coaxing a heart that had had enough but still wanted.

 

**V**

Maybe somewhere they were holding onto the answer to “do you believe in luck?”

If neither believed in luck, neither believed in fate—and sure not the one Nicky liked to dance around of the sureness Erik was his soulmate.

 

**VI**

Despite all things, Andrew hated that he had had to drink another five shots after speaking school-taught German to a runaway. But more than that he hated how long he stared at the ceiling of his room in Columbia, his lips refusing to remember the admission he had given that dumb-faced boy.

_That doesn’t mean I wouldn’t blow you._

Alcohol was the easiest culprit. Shame and embarrassment did not exist in Andrew’s world, but stupidity seemed to have made its way in the form of the world’s second exy junkie. Whether it was that stupid face holding a knowing look or the prying way he wanted something more _for (not from)_ the goalkeeper, Andrew was stuck with the boy with lying blue eyes.

They were blue not brown.

Had he truly noticed the ring of contacts when he had picked up Neil from the airport simply because he was observant and had a keen memory? The binder a confirmation that the new recruit was a liar.

Of course.

But then he remembered Nicky gushing about how Erik was ‘the one’ when he had purposefully lied to Erik. “Oh, he saw right through it, Aaron! Or rather heard it? Felt it? Either way he said he knew and then I knew! Soulmates do exist! If Erik and I are then surely you and Kaitlyn could be.”

Aaron’s response had been another, “you’ve told this story too many times.”

Andrew’s response, then, had been a medicated laugh.

Andrew’s response now was a blank stare at the ceiling and a single thought,

 _Fuck_ —

 

**VII**

For Andrew it was Baltimore. Those half-truths revealing themselves as truths. With every word Neil spoke, Andrew no longer heard that annoying ring, the hiss that queased his stomach. But that low voice had returned, the one that breathed heavily down a phone and one that had said  _thank you._

For Neil it was slow. It was the percentages. A hissing ring no a feeling of something slightly off laced the numbers. At first, he thought it was just his hearing but a life on the run had always meant to trust your gut even if it meant throwing yourself and so Neil pushed a little further. And each time resulted in a kiss or a rough pull in his hair. The kisses were better the hardness was nice.

 

**VIII**

And in that first bed that they shared, Neil could not stop breathing heavy, his breath as hard as he ached. He sunk into the hard presses of Andrew’s hands, felt his weight dip the mattress, his body sinking in. Andrew following. Dipping. A kiss that was too hot under blankets but too good to pull from. Both listening to one another in the moans, feeling skin and heat and a stickiness that was not unpleasant.

And in the beds and showers and quiet rooms after, they expressed that pleasure. Giving but always asking before tongue found skin or hands gripped weight. Neil pressing lips heavy on a bare throat that Andrew would not pull from, would rather bare more or curl into depending on the ache of their breaths. Coaxing.  

And it was slow and needing. It was a trust the other knew when to say no, when the other would stop. It was the two of them and only them.

No lies and no truths.

Only the present and them.

 

**IX**

Living together meant more exy, more privacy, more of them. They had shared a room for almost four years at Palmetto and despite the few year gap of travelling from state to state, the settling in a one apartment was a domestic life both men never had dared dreamed.

Cat hair stuck to clothes and furniture, lint rollers were a necessity in their home. And a day did not go by where Andrew was threatening to kick the cats through the window as he added extra food into their bowls, or had Neil watching exy draped in cats and Andrew’s legs.

So, in the winter months when temperatures iced and shivered the cats’ fur, two humans were good heaters. Sneaking into their bed and onto their persons. It was hard to get used to but so easy to be comfortable with.

“When’re you taking them back to the shelter?” Andrew asked, watching Sir knead his paws on the duvet covering his stomach.

Neil gave a short laugh. “Oh, but this is the shelter. I’m adopting more.”

Andrew looked to Neil, both knowing the truth of that statement. They were after all, soulmates.

 

**X**

Yes.

Whether it would truly be a _‘yes’_ each time, the ease that it was the truth was a trust both boys needed. A solid trust in one word: not in the agreement but in the meaning.

It was always about trust between them. Neither were surviving alone. No, they were living. 


End file.
